


Running Towards Nothing Again and Again

by Aaronlisa



Category: Labyrinth (1986)
Genre: Angst, Depression, Gen, Medication, Mental Health Issues, Minor Character Death, Post-Movie(s), Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-14
Updated: 2017-05-14
Packaged: 2018-10-31 19:03:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10905531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aaronlisa/pseuds/Aaronlisa
Summary: Set post-movie, Sarah's life is compromised of running.





	Running Towards Nothing Again and Again

She's running as fast as she can but it's like she's getting nowhere. Branches turn into knotted hands that grab at her and as she runs her skin is scratched and clawed while her clothes tear. Yet she keeps running. To be honest, she's not even sure if she's running towards safety or from it. If she were less terrified, she'd admit that she was hopelessly loss and confused. However, her heart is beating so fast in her chest that all she can do is run and run and run to an unknown destination.

A shrill ringing sound interrupts her terror-filled run and Sarah groans as she slowly wakes up. The dream is almost gone before she opens her eyes and stares at her ceiling. The last tattered remnants of the dream are a moment of panic and a sense of being watched. When she blinks her eyes, it's gone. It's like this every night and every morning. She dreams but she never remembers it. She knows that she dreams but she can't remember it. It's a combination of the medications that she takes. Medications that make her pretend that the truth was nothing a but the fevered imagination of a teenaged girl. Medications that numb the pain of turning her back on what might have been had she only been brave enough of take what was offered to her. 

Her days blend into giant lump of sameness. She wakes up, forgets her dreams, dresses in the near dark of her bedroom, eats a piece of toast with a cup of tea before she leaves for work, she works until it's time to come home. When she gets home, she makes herself a plain dinner that she eats over her sink before she watches boring television until it's time to shower and then go to bed where she dreams of running and running. 

She fills her life with pills, work and mindless noise from the TV so she never has to think about what it is that she gave up. She never spends a moment thinking about the fact that she could have been extraordinary instead of just an average woman who has nothing to live for. 

The only times she feels alive are when she makes the trip back home to visit her father, stepmother and her brother. It's seeing Toby thriving and happy that makes it all worth it. The nightmares that she can't remember (is she running from _him_ or is she running from her life), the dull existence of her day to day to life (whatever happened to her dreams of becoming an actress like her mother) and the emptiness of her social calendar (she always an awkward girl.) Karen and her father keep quiet about the fact that Sarah is a pale imitation of who she used to be. 

When she's home, everything is different. Yet everything hurts so much when she goes back to her empty apartment in the city. So she avoids going home as much as possible. She can count on one hand the number of times she goes home: once for Christmas, once for Toby's birthday and a week in the summer. That's it, three times. It doesn't matter that the only time she actually doesn't need the sleeping pills is when she sleeps in her single bed in her bedroom from childhood. It's the only time that she wakes up without a sense of panic. 

She runs from the sense of peace and comfort she feels at home because it's all just another reminder of what she loss. The summer after the _dream that wasn't a dream_ her mother had died. Her father had tried to keep the details from her but Karen had told her the truth (gently when Sarah had demanded it) and the fact that her mother had killed herself almost destroyed Sarah. That's when her father took her to therapists. That's when she learned that _it_ had all been a _dream_ , nothing more and nothing less. A dream for a girl who was lost and alone and desperately wanted to be the centre of someone's attention.

A year later she was committed to an _institution_ during the summer because she just couldn't get over her mother's death and the _dream_. It was the first of many visits. Its' why Sarah limits her visits back home to less than fourteen days on the calendar. Home as welcoming and peaceful it is, has far too many painful memories. It's better to numb herself in the safety of her bland little apartment. 

* * *

She's running. Always running. Running away from who she used to be. Running away from what is supposed to have been just a dream but maybe it wasn't. Running from her family. Running from her boring life in the city. Running from the ghosts of who she used to be and from her dead mother who abandoned her. 

Sometimes Sarah just wants to stop running but she doesn't know what she'd do if she did. 

((END))

**Author's Note:**

> The title comes from "A Forest" by The Cure.


End file.
